Free ANZAAS talk Melbourne Wed 17th March 6:30pm

All welcome, no booking needed

At: Gene Technology Access Centre, 1H Royal Parade, Parkville

Free drinks and pizza after the talk

“Can experts be trusted?”

Professor Mark Burgman

Director, Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis (ACERA)

Expert judgements are a routine and necessary part of risk analysis because it is usually too cumbersome and costly to collect all the necessary information. We need experts to fill gaps in knowledge, and to provide explanations of how systems work. However, research over the last 40 years in psychology has shown that perception of risk is filtered by memory, context, anchoring, experience, emotion, and other subjective factors. Research on the performance of nuclear risk engineers, geophysicists, ecologists and other professional groups has shown that most experts are overconfident in their abilities to estimate quantities. How can we make better use of experts? Can we anticipate and adjust for their biases and psychological sensitivities? How should knowledge of their foibles affect our trust in their assessments?

***Enter off Story Steet, GTAC is at the western end of University High School’s oval***

These talks are supported by CSL

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